Making an Entrance

Views of The Arrow Cottage Garden, Herefordshire

We are often asked if we miss our garden. In short, the answer is no. Besides, it is now almost twenty years since we left Herefordshire for Budapest, exchanging some two acres of formal gardens for a single container of clipped box, Buxus sempervirens, on our walkway. Even that is work!

View of Box plant in The Budapest Garden

But the memories do, to use a well worn cliché, linger on. And no more so than in what we term the Front Hall. Lest there be any confusion, allow us to explain that the Front Hall opens off the main staircase of our C19 apartment building and, in turn, provides access to our Main Hall and principal rooms. However, linger we do not!

Front Hall viewed from the Entrance Door

To be absolutely truthful, in Winter, as of now, in terms of temperature, the thermometer is no stranger to several degrees below freezing whilst in Summer, with the windows thrown open to the courtyard below, the heat can prove insufferable. Not at all unlike the extremes of a gardening year that perhaps accounts for why we have chosen to paint the walls in Farrow and Ball's 'Breakfast Room Green' and furnish it with some of the items brought from our Herefordshire garden.

Front Hall looking from the Main Hall

Not least of these is the country style, farmhouse kitchen table which used to sit below The Tower, the accompanying schoolroom benches have found a place on the walkway, and which, in past times, played host to many a Summer supper party. 

Beneath The Tower, The Arrow Cottage Garden

Now, collected together, in a quasi-David Hicks' table-scape, are some mementoes of our gardening days. Prominent, as a centrepiece, is the grape entwined basket, a gift from dearest friends, Lesley and John Jenkins, whose garden, Wollerton Old Hall, ranks among the finest of all late C20 English gardens. 

'Table-scape' with ceramic basket and garden ephemera

Less noticeable, a small, hand painted finial serves to remind us of the gifted artist and gallery owner, Elizabeth Organ, who was so much a treasured part of our lives. Other items worthy of a place range from a miniature wooden trug, home to garden related ephemera, to galvanised flower vases and the head of a spade decorated by the Hungarian artist, Franyo Aatoth.

Miscellaneous objects in the Front Hall

The grey painted, metal chairs were originally purchased as a set of six for the White Garden, in name only resembling Vita Sackville West's masterpiece at Sissinghurst Castle. With the addition of swab cushions they are now far more in the way of decoration than for daily use.

White Garden, The Arrow Cottage Garden, Herefordshire

Now, with Spring around the corner, shall we decorate with daffodils, highlight with hyacinths, or place pelargoniums in pots? Let's not, and say we did!